Well-being is not just a question of the wealth or pleasure that a person has; it is a question of how people manage to live their lives and the ability they have to do certain things that are important to them. This was the argument put forward by Professor Amartya Sen in 1979. In his seminal Tanner Lecture – ‘Equality of What?’, Sen unites economics and philosophy to explore how a person’s well-being might best be measured. It was the first in a series of writings in which he developed his capability approach. This focuses on the actual capability ...

Focus must be shifted from income inequality to economic inequality because of the presence of causal influences on individual well-being and freedom that are economic in nature but cannot be expounded by simple statistics of incomes and commodity holdings. Attention must be given to heterogeneous magnitudes. Moreover, there is a need for the derivation of partial orderings based on explicit or implicit public acceptance.

An astute bureaucratic pundit named Rufus Miles once observed that ‘where you stand depends on where you sit’ (Miles 1978). This ‘Miles Law’ deserves to be kept centrally in mind when considering not only traditional bureaucratic behaviour, but also health equity; for one's judgment about what's ‘best’ in the health equity area is unavoidably shaped by his/her institutional experience, background and interests.Rather than challenge such an unfortunately well-established reality, better for an author to admit at the outset just where (s)he has ...

The “Triangle that Moves the Mountain” is a conceptualized strategy initiated as a social tool for solving difficult social problems, by simultaneously strengthening capacity in three interrelated sectors: (1) creation of knowledge; (2) social movement; and (3) political involvement. The concept has been claimed as the basis of many successes in various Thai policy arenas. This article describes the strategy implications of four alcohol policy development case studies. The first case is the establishment process for the Thai Health Promotion ...

Racism, ethnocentrism, segregation, stereotyping, and classism are tightly linked to health equity and social determinants of health. They lead to lack of power, money, resources, and education which may result in poor health care access and outcomes. Health profession faculties must address the complex relationships that exist between individual, interpersonal, institutional, social and political factors that influence health outcomes in both clinical and research training. Thus, the purposes of this paper are to provide examples of training ...

Poverty reduction is a central feature of the international development agenda and contemporary poverty reduction strategies increasingly focus on “targeting the poor”, yet poverty and inequality remain intractable foes. Combating Poverty and Inequality argues that this is because many current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country’s ...

The new homelessness has drawn sustained attention from scholars over the past three decades. Definitional inconsistencies and data limitations rendered early work during this period largely speculative in nature. Thanks to conceptual, theoretical, and methodological progress, however, the research literature now provides a fuller understanding of homelessness. Contributions by sociologists and other social scientists since the mid-1990s differentiate among types of homelessness, provide credible demographic estimates, and show how being homeless ...

Indigenous Peoples are not at all mentioned or referred to in any ASEAN document, even though they are an integral part of the ASEAN Community and among its most vulnerable sectors, whose interest the ASEAN has committed itself to protect. The failure of the ASEAN to address the plight of its Indigenous Peoples despite its expressed commitment to human rights and social justice is a shortcoming that needs to be corrected urgently. Unless Indigenous Peoples are fully recognized as integral part of a culturally diverse ASEAN, and unless Indigenous ...